The Christmas Bat
by NotSweetSkills0112943
Summary: Damian Wayne loved Christmas. It would shock any and every person who knew Damian personally. His own brothers didn’t believe it in the beginning. Damian’s first Christmas at the manor had been different-every Christmas after that, he was a very happy boy, second only to his oldest brother. What changed his attitude, you may ask? Well, listen up, and I’ll tell you.


Hey!

This is a one-shot for Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas, then... I guess don't read... idk, I can't tell you what to do.

Anyway, please enjoy!

**_Line Break_**

Damian Wayne loved Christmas.

It would shock any and every person who knew Damian personally.

His own brothers didn't believe it in the beginning. Damian's first Christmas at the manor had been different-the first Christmas, Damian was a mini-Scrooge. He didn't like Christmas, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

And yet, every Christmas after that, he was a very happy boy, second only to his oldest brother.

What changed his attitude, you may ask?

Well, listen up, and I'll tell you.

**_Line Break_**

"DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY, FA-LA-LA-LA-LA, LA-LA-LA-LA!!!!!"

Damian covered his ears. It was bad enough when Grayson sang Disney songs, but to sing this abomination at the top of his lungs?

To make it worse, Tim joined in the singing.

"TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, FA-LA-LA-LA-LA, LA-LA LA-LA!!!!!"

As if things weren't bad enough, Jason barged into the room with Dick and Tim behind him. Damian turned on his best glare, but Jason ignored this.

"DON WE NOW OUR GAY APPAREL!!!!!"

"FA-LA-LA, LA-LA-LA, LA LA LA!!!!!"

"TROLL THE ANCIENT ULE TIDE CAROL!!!!!"

"FA-LA-LA LA-LA, LA-LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

When they finished the song, the three boys burst into laughter. Damian was still glaring at them, a fact that they only noticed once their laughter had died down.

"Merry Christmas!" Dick exclaimed to Damian, who's glare was still going strong. Dick ignored this fact as he wrapped Damian up in a tight hug.

"Whatever," Damian growled, and Dick stepped back in shock.

"'Whatever?'" Dick asked.

"Oh, I get it," Tim said. "You've never celebrated Christmas before, have you?"

"So what if I haven't?" Damian bit. Dick and Jason's mouths fell open in shock.

"You've never celebrated Christmas?" Jason asked. He grinned really big. "Hate to burst it to you, but there is no escaping Christmas here at the manor."

"You may as well celebrate with us!" Tim suggested merrily, but Damian shook his head.

"I have no need to celebrate Christmas," he said flatly. "It's all about presents, making the rich richer, and pretending to be happy through it all even though the only thing anyone wants to do is be given free items that will be thrown away the next day."

"That's not true," Dick said. "Christmas is about spending time with friends and family!"

"Yeah, it's in, like, every Christmas movie ever," Jason told Damian.

"If you want to waste your time, I won't stop you," Damian spat at them. "Just don't go and waste my time, too."

With that, he walked out. Damian didn't even look back as he left the manor. He shivered as the icy air hit him, but he didn't dare turn back and grab a jacket. Instead, he continued forward, muttering to himself as his feet carried him along.

"Merry Christmas... what a load of crap! Family and friends? Don't people get enough of them during the day?"

He realized that he had reached the bridge separating Gotham and Blüdhaven and stopped. He looked over the side of the bridge into the river and thought for a moment.

"Perhaps I don't believe in the same things they do..." he thought out loud. "But I was pretty rude about it... I should probably go back and apologize."

There was a chill in the air. When Damian looked up again, he was surrounded in a thick mist.

"Oh, just great. Way to go, Damian. Wander off through the most crime-ridden city in the world without paying attention to where you're going. Fantastic," he told himself sarcastically. He started walking away when he heard footsteps at the other end of the bridge.

Damian stopped cold. He kept his eyes trained on that spot, trying to see something-or someone- through the heavy fog, but he couldn't.

"Who's there?" he asked, reaching for his sword, then realizing that he had foolishly left it at home. He shivered, both from the cold and his nerves.

A man stepped out in front of him. Damian smiled wide at the man.

"Pennyworth," he greeted. Alfred smiled back at him and handed him a heavy jacket.

"Master Damian, why did you leave the manor without a coat? It's much too cold out here," the butler chastised.

"I forgot," Damian told him. He turned back to the river.

"Are you going to be celebrating Christmas with the rest of the family?"

"Of course not," Damian told him. "I don't do Christmas."

"Alright, sir," Alfred told him. Damian sighed.

"But I do have to apologize to the others."

Damian turned to look at Alfred again, but the old butler was gone.

"Alfred?" Damian called, but he did not reappear. Damian wandered off the bridge again.

"What a strange encounter with Pennyworth," Damian thought out loud. It started to snow, and Damian wrapped his winter coat around himself.

"Tell me about it," someone said from behind him. Damian jumped slightly and turned around, coming face-to-face with a black-haired kid wearing aviators, a blue jacket over a green shirt, long black skinny jeans, and black converse. He had a lazy grin on his face as he studied Damian.

"I mean, I love Alfred, but sometimes he's scarier than Bruce," the kid said. Damian just stared at him.

"Uh, who are you?"

"What, you don't recognize your own brother?" the kid asked him lazily. He then frowned in thought. "Actually, now that you mention it, you wouldn't recognize me, not like this... well, my name is Richard Grayson, but you can call me Dick."

"Grayson?" Damian asked in shock. Dick's grin grew as he removed his glasses, revealing the icy blue eyes Damian was used to. He winked and took a somewhat dramatic bow.

"The one and only, though I suppose I'm not the only, since I'm a younger version of your older brother, who's awesome, by the way."

"Yep, it's you," Damian decided. "How-what are you doing here?"

"Have you ever seen A Christmas Carol?"

"Nope," Damian admitted. Dick frowned slightly.

"Well, that makes things a bit more difficult," he said. He put his sunglasses back on. His smile returned again. "You can consider me the ghost of Christmas Past."

"Ghost?" Damian asked with a snort. "Yeah, ok. Nice try."

Dick just stood there as Damian circled him.

"Very funny Grayson," Damian called into the emptiness. "Very elaborate prank."

"Uh, this isn't a prank," Dick said, but Damian continued his odd behavior.

"How did you even set this up? Is he a robot?"

Damian poked Dick.

"I'm not a robot."

"Yeah yeah, you're a ghost," Damian said. "If you're a ghost, how come my hand isn't passing right through you?"

"Ok, that does it," Dick said. He grabbed Damian's hand, all joking mannerisms aside.

"I thought I'd get to explain things to you so this would be easier on you, but apparently not."

"What do you-?"

Damian was cut off when the world started spinning. Only Dick stayed still, holding Damian's arm in a vice-like grip.

"What's happening?" Damian shouted, but Dick didn't answer him. When the spinning finally stopped, Damian and Dick were standing in a dojo-like area.

"Where are we?" Damian groaned, trying not to throw up.

"We're in the League of Assassin's training room," Dick told him, unsympathetic towards Damian's obvious motion sickness.

"How-how did we-?"

"Look," Dick interrupted him, gesturing to the door. Damian swallowed down the bile building up in the back of his throat and watched the door open and close.

A very small child with spiky, unkempt hair had entered, a big grin on his face. He sat down in the center of the room and turned to the door, waiting for something. His mother entered, looking very unhappy.

"Damian, what are you doing?" she demanded.

"Sitting here," LittleDamian told her, his smile fading slowly. Older Damian's eyes widened.

"You remember this?" Dick asked him knowingly.

"Yes..." Damian answered hesitatingly. They watched as his mother walked up to LittleDamian.

"You've been going around saying something to the guards and trainees," she prompted. LittleDamian's smile returned.

"Oh, yeah!" he exclaimed. His mother glared and his smile disappeared.

"What have you been saying?"

"M-Merry Christmas?" the kid said, almost sounding like a question.

"Why have you been saying this?"

"Because everyone always seems so depressed... I thought that maybe-"

"You thought?" Talia demanded. The poor kid's eyes fell to the floor. "You thought that you would go around making a fool of yourself because you THOUGHT it would make people happy?"

LittleDamian nodded glumly.

"If I hear those words out of you again, you'll be marked as a traitor and killed on the spot," she told him. Talia stood up and left the room, not noticing the tears streaming silently down the small child's face.

Older Damian wiped at his own eyes. That wasn't something someone should say to a child... regardless of whether they deserved it or not.

"How old were you?" Dick asked him gently.

"What does it matter?" Damian asked him, wiping his eyes and standing up straight.

"Well, it's just... you seemed to be pretty excited about the thought of celebrating Christmas," Dick said. Damian stared straight ahead.

"5," he said. He watched Dick out of the corner of his eye. Dick was smiling sadly.

"Come on," he said. "There's one more thing I need to show you."

He held out his hand and Damian took it hesitantly. The world spun around again, but it wasn't as bad as the first time. When the world had slowed down, he saw that they were back in the manor.

"What are we doing here?" Damian asked him. Upon closer inspection, he realized the manor was not the same as he had left it. Sure, the Christmas decorations were still up, but he didn't see any pictures on the walls.

The front door opened and a much younger-looking Bruce Wayne entered the house. He looked dead tired and worn-down, but he still managed to look shocked when he saw the decorations.

"Hey Bruce!" called a familiar voice. Damian looked at the Christmas tree and saw another young Grayson standing on a stepladder.

"Dick? What's all this?"

"Alfred told me why you don't celebrate Christmas," Dick said solemnly. "So I figured... might as well give you something good to remember Christmas by."

"Dick, I don't think-"

"A wise man once told me that sometimes you have to run back to the things that caused you pain in order to get rid of it," Dick interrupted him. "So, and I'm half expecting you to say no, would you consider celebrating this year? It won't break my heart, and I'll take all these decorations down, if you want me to."

Damian could see his father thinking deeply about this. After a moment of thought, Bruce smiled.

"I guess... it couldn't hurt to celebrate again," he said. Dick's face broke into a huge grin.

"Yes! Also, I saved you the honor of putting the star on the tree," he said, holding out a beautiful golden star. Bruce smiled and picked Dick up, setting the star on the top of the tree.

The whole scene was heartwarming, and Damian couldn't help but smile.

"That was... nice. But what exactly happened to father on Christmas?"

Instead of hearing Dick's voice as an answer, he heard a faint gunshot and the sound of a child shouting and crying. Damian's smile left his face and he turned around, hoping to find the source of the noise, but there was no one there. The sounds started echoing around him, coming from nowhere. Damian slapped his hands over his ears and ran.

**_LineBreak_**

When he finally stopped and uncovered his ears, he realized he was back on the bridge. The noises had stopped, as had the snow. Damian took a deep breath.

"There's no way that was real... I just imagined it all... maybe the cold is getting to me, making me hallucinate. Yeah, that's it. It was all a hallucination."

But Damian still had goosebumps. He took another deep breath and walked off the bridge again.

"Dude, I don't think that was a hallucination."

Damian sighed and turned around.

"Look, Grayson, I don't know what you think-"

"Grayson?" the voice demanded, and Damian got a better look at this kid. He had to be older than Dick, at least by three years. Maybe he was 12 or 13. He wasn't wearing sunglasses, revealing his sky-blue eyes. He was wearing a black hoodie, but the collar of a white shirt was barely visible. He had blue pants and black adidas. Damian couldn't help but notice how painfully thin the kid was.

"Dude, it's bad enough that you didn't recognize him. But you spend every waking day trying to kill me!"

"Todd?" Damian asked. Jason smirked at him.

"I know, I know. A little different without the white streak, huh?"

"What-oh, wait. No, let me guess..."

"I'm playing the spirit of Christmas Present," he said. Damian sighed.

"Look, I've already realized that I was a jerk to them. Can't I just go home already?"

"Nope," he said, popping the 'p.' "It's in my contract-I've got to show you stuff. So, you ready?"

"No."

Jason laughed, a pure, cheerful sound, and Damian questioned whether this was actually Jason or not. He seemed much happier, more carefree. Jason reached out a hand to him.

The world spun again, and Damian landed back in the manor. He saw Jason, Tim, and Dick still hanging up decorations and talking.

"I hope he's ok," Dick said. "He's been gone for a while."

"I'm sure he's fine, Dick," Tim assured him. Jason sighed.

"I mean, I wasn't into Christmas at first, but I wasn't that bad, was I?"

"Not really," Tim said. "Then again, I can't really talk."

"It's snowing outside," Dick noticed. The other two looked out the window as well.

"Dick, Damian will be fine," Tim assured him.

"Yeah, he's a stubborn little nut," Jason said. "And he isn't stupid."

"If he runs into any trouble, he'll call us," Tim said. Dick sighed.

"But what if he left his communicator here? Or his phone? He's already forgotten his jacket and sword!"

"Dick, stop worrying," Jason said, giving him a hug. "He's also been trained in hand-to-hand combat, remember?"

"And it wouldn't take him long to find a way to contact us," Tim agreed. Dick smiled at both of them.

"Yeah... you guys are right. I just wish..."

"What?" Jason asked.

"I wish Damian could have grown up here, with us... maybe he would like Christmas."

"I'm sure that over time he'll grow to love spending Christmas here," Tim said.

"Yeah, we sure did. And you guys know how I am," Jason agreed. Dick snorted.

"Please, you just like hanging mistletoe around the manor and tricking us all into standing under them." Jason smiled and shrugged.

"Eh. It's true."

Damian laughed at that. He was a bit shocked with their behavior, if he had to be honest. He didn't remember a time where Jason and Tim would be the ones to get Dick to stop worrying about something... and Jason seemed happier, too. Smiling more than Damian can remember ever having seen.

"It's nice, huh?" Spirit Jason asked from beside Damian. Damian watched his brothers for a moment longer, then turned to the much younger Jason.

"What is?"

"Seeing them all get along," Spirit Jason said, nodding his head in his brothers' direction. Damian turned watch them again.

"To be honest, it's really weird," he admitted. Spirit Jason laughed.

"Yeah, I guess it is. You know, they only show outward affection for each other on Christmas. Well, excluding Dick, who's always affectionate and not afraid to show it."

Damian remembered the part of their conversation where they were talking about him. From the way they were talking, it felt like they didn't enjoy Christmas at first, either.

"One more stop!" Spirit Jason exclaimed, reaching down for Damian's hand. Damian took it and the world stopped spinning.

"Ew, fruitcake?" Damian heard someone complain.

"We might as well be nice about it," someone chastised him. They were still in the manor, but he only saw Dick and younger Jason sitting at the table.

"Why did this become a holiday tradition?" Jason asked Dick. The older boy shrugged. Damian's attention was once again drawn to how thin Jason looked.

"I have no idea," Dick told him. "But let's hurry up and find something to do with it."

"I thought we were supposed to eat it?" Jason asked. He poked it with his fork, then screamed a little when he couldn't get it back.

"Well, you've said it yourself: ew," Dick told him. Jason laughed. "So, we've got to find something to do with it that's still fun for you."

Dick looked around in thought. He seemed to get a very good idea.

"Jason, you like pranking people, right?"

"Yeah, why?" Jason asked. Dick smirked at him.

"How about, every Christmas, you find something to make an elaborate prank with!"

"Won't I get in trouble?" Jason asked.

"Not as long as no one gets hurt," Dick said. Jason's smile grew wide. "You've already told me that you have no need for fancy presents. Well, might as well find a way to enjoy Christmas without feeling uncomfortable."

Damian smiled. Of course, it was just like Dick to find a solution to everyone's problem that benefitted everyone else. He turned to Spirit Jason, who had disappeared. Damian turned back to younger Jason and Dick, but they were gone, too. Damian blinked and realized that he was back on the bridge.

**_Line Break_**

"Grayson mentioned A Christmas Carol," Damian remembered. "What was there?"

He may not have seen the movie, but he was forced to listen to the book. Dick had decided three days ago to read the whole thing out loud for him. Damian was just now remembering the story.

There was an old weirdo named Scrooge who hated Christmas. He was visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

Damian has already been visited by Past and Present, which meant Future was next. From what he could remember of the story, Scrooge had been most fearful of Future.

"But who is going to play future?" Damian asked out loud.

"That would be me."

Damian gasped and turned around. For a second, he thought it was Jason again. It looked exactly like him-well, almost. His hair was a little more tended to, and his eyes were cerulean, not sky blue. He was wearing a nice black jacket over a red t-shirt. He had black pants like Dick, but his shoes were dark green Nike. But otherwise, this could have still been Jason.

"Drake?"

"And not a moment too soon," Tim said, holding out his hand. Damian was once again confused. Dick and Jason were both happy and joking around, and now Tim... well, he wasn't exactly what Damian was hoping for.

"What are you going to show me?" Damian asked him, but Tim didn't answer. His face was devoid of all emotion, which had Damian a bit worried.

Instead of spinning, the mist grew and parted around them. When it cleared away, Damian glanced around at the scenery.

"Where are we?" he asked, but Tim had already disappeared.

Damian wandered around for a bit before recognizing the weather-worn area as Gotham City. The streets were completely abandoned, the wind blowing through the holes in the houses.

"What happened here?" he asked himself. He touched a building briefly before noticing two people walking his way.

By this point, Damian had assumed that nobody could see him in these hallucinations (yes, he was going to call them that for lack of anything better to call them.) He watched warily as the two approached, catching their conversation.

"How did everything come to this?" one of them, the female, asked.

"I heard that after Damian Wayne went missing on Christmas, the Waynes completely shut down," said her friend. Damian was shocked to hear this news, but he followed the two, hoping for the rest of the story.

"Is that why Wayne Enterprises all around the world were shut down?"

"That's just what I heard, but that's why we're going to Jerry."

The girl stopped in her tracks.

"J-Jerry?"

"I want to know what happened just as bad as you," he told her. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

She seemed to think about it before the two continued walking, Damian trailing right behind them.

They arrived at one of the crumbling buildings. The two entered, Damian remaining unseen. The trio walked up to a man with a scar over his left eye.

"I hear you want to know about the Waynes," he said smoothly. He had an Australian accent, but talked like a Brit. Despite whatever shape this man was in, he clearly gained a lot of power and was living in luxury.

"What happened? How did Gotham get so bad?"

"Well, the Waynes were the supposed 'batfamily.' Wayne Junior had walked out earlier that 'fateful night' and didn't come home. The Waynes called the police, then put on their fancy costumes. Batman was still in the 'batcave' as they called it, and, rumor is, some bloke named Batwoman snuck in and done murdered the guy."

Damian gasped, and to his dismay, Jerry turned and looked right at him.

"They caught the murderer, found out she's the guy's cousin. The Justice League came in and decided to take her in themselves-well, they weren't the real League, just cheap clones from a different universe. Same with Batwoman. The Batfamily figured this out quickly and managed to rally up the real ones, they got into a war... you can see the impact it left on this city."

The people Damian had entered with looked truly horrified.

"Did they ever find out what happened to Damian?" the guy asked. Jerry smirked.

"Never," he said. "Not a soul."

"How do you know all this information?" the female asked.

"I'm the one what brought those clones here," Jerry said with a smirk. Damian watched him with a wide-eyed look on his face.

"N-no... I was going home!" he exclaimed. The three people in the audience turned to him, dead eyes watching him, studying him, questioning him.

"Go waste someone else's time!" Jerry shouted.

"Christmas is a hoax!" shouted the female.

"We get enough of our families during the day!" shouted the male.

"I was going home to apologize for saying those things!" Damian shouted back, but the three continued shouting these things, repeating them, getting louder and louder until Damian had to cover his ears.

"It's the Spirits who are showing me these things, preventing me from going home!"

As if mentioning them got their attention, he heard Dick and Jason's laughter join the crowd of noise, getting steadily louder until it resonated through every bone in Damian's body. Even Tim was shouting, though the noise was all mixing together that Damian couldn't make out any one individual noise.

"Why are you guys keeping me here!? Why won't you let me go home?!" Damian cried. The noise just got louder, as if feeding off Damian's desperation. He felt his energy drain away as he realized something.

He was the one who disappeared. He was the one who said those terrible things about celebrating Christmas. He was the one who walked out.

It wasn't the Spirits' fault that he was stuck in this mess. It was his own-because he walked out.

And now his family was going to pay the price for it.

**_Line Break_**

"Alright, thanks commissioner."

Dick hung up the call. It had been two hours since Damian left. It had started snowing pretty heavily outside, by this point.

"Maybe we should suit up and look for him," Tim said. "I'm kinda worried about him."

"Yeah, me too," Jason admitted. Bruce wouldn't be home for another hour, anyway.

"Yeah," Dick agreed. "Let's change and head out."

**_Line Break_**

Damian gasped awake. For a second, he didn't recognize where he was. He sat up, feeling a bit dizzy. Looking around, nothing felt familiar to him-not even his own body.

He saw a shadow pass overhead. Somehow, this didn't worry him, or even scare him. A moment later, a figure landed a couple feet in front of him. It removed its helmet and tossed it on the ground as it ran up to him. Damian just watched it.

"Damian?" it asked him. Damian tilted his head to the side like a lost puppy.

The figure crouched down in front of him. Sky blue eyes met his. They were warm, full of concern.

"Damian, are you alright?"

Damian continued to stare at him. The figure touched something in his ear.

"I found him... he's conscious, but unresponsive."

A pause.

"The bridge between Gotham and Blüdhaven," he said. There was another long pause.

"Wasn't planning on it."

Damian watched as the figure sat down beside him.

"No jacket?"

Damian looked down and realized that he wasn't wearing one. That was odd... he knew that at one point he had received a jacket. He didn't even feel the cold.

"Here, put this on," the man beside him said, and he removed the leather jacket. He sat Damian up in a different position and helped him put it on. It was still warm.

"There. Now, hopefully you won't freeze," he said. The two sat back against the bridge again.

"Thank you, Todd," Damian said quietly. Jason turned to face him.

"It's fine," he said. Damian leaned into Jason. To his surprise, he didn't move. In fact, he wrapped an arm protectively around the boy.

"I'm sorry... about what I said," Damian told him. "And... I'm sorry about walking out."

"Hey, we've got you back," Jason told him. "That's all that matters."

Dick and Tim showed up at this exact moment and took them all home.

**_Line Break_**

From that day on, Damian managed to keep an open mind about Christmas. They got home before Bruce did, so Bruce didn't head down to the batcave once that night. The next day, Damian hunted down the man named Jerry and threw him into Arkham. He told his family that the reason for this behavior was that the previous night, he had heard some thugs talking about it on the streets. He went off the rumors and found them all true.

Batman rallied the Justice League and they headed out in search of these clones, sending them back to their respective dimensions.

And though Damian's family went right back to their usual dysfunctional attitude, there was one day every year where they showed their love and affections for each other, Damian included. There was a certain charm to watching the batfamily fight, but in the end, you could see that they all cared for each other.

So, yes, Damian Wayne loves everything about Christmas. Well, there was the time that Jason managed to trap him and Steph underneath a bunch of mistletoe, but Damian managed to exact his revenge. It just involved, Jason, Kara Danvers, and a whole bunch of mistletoe and kryptonite embedded ropes. But, that's a story for another day. I believe this one just needs two more words.

The End.

**_LineBreak_**

So, this could have been better. If you enjoyed it, then yay! Have a Merry Christmas, or, if you're one of those people who read Christmas fanfics in the middle of the summer... then, Merry random day.


End file.
